Hello Friends of Trees!

Hey check out the new blog by Friends of Trees called "Growth Rings" - the link is down on the right side of this page and also here:

http://friendsoftrees.org/blog/

Friends of Trees are responsible for creating the new canopy the Portland area has experienced in the last 20 years or so....they are doing a fantastic job of getting the word out: TREES MATTER!!!!

Pruning your OWN Trees

Yes, we hired an arborist to prune our own trees on our property.

We have an ornamental plum tree in our front yard that was showing evidence of disease: black knot disease to be exact. The cure is to prune judiciously, spray with a fungicide and feed the tree back to good health. We're using an arborist who is certified in the best practices of the industry and who, well, loves trees.

Our fruit plum tree in the back was just overgrown and needed thinning and pruning.

Now they both look MUCH better. Over the next year they will get some fertilizer and they should both do well.

Planting Trees

David and I attended the "dig it" event at Mt. Tabor Middle School on Saturday and we helped plant trees there with Friends of Trees, Urban Forestry and a bunch of volunteers from different places. We also graduated as Neighborhood Tree Stewards and we even received a certificate!

I tried to get my Mom to travel to Portland for this graduation, but she declined. She started laughing "I've been to ENOUGH of your graduations!"

Tree planting tips: wear your grubbies (you will get muddy), bring gloves, a shovel, some pruning shears and a knife or wire cutters (depending on how the trees are wrapped up). I think that Urban Forestry will bring mulch (we should check with Karl Dawson about that), but it might be a good idea to have some buckets of water or hoses ready as well.

November 14 - are you ready???

Rogue Dawson

Yesterday was our last tree stewardship class and our final speaker was the now infamous Karl Dawson, the man who is going to get our trees replanted on Omaha.



What a nice guy - he's been head of public/private park partnerships for 10 years on behalf of the City of Portland. He organizes volunteers and neighborhood groups to do city tree projects that the neighborhoods want done, and he works to energize neighborhood groups to recognize the importance of trees to their streets, parks and property.

He's having trouble finding trees in the species that we want (and that he suggested) to plant in the Omaha Parkway. He wants trees with a big enough caliper size so that they won't be easily vandalized and will grow quickly. So he's requested a set-over of the planting date until November 14 in order to find the trees he wants.

So: we need at least 7 people to help with planting on November 14. David and I are in - are you?

From Neighbor Mike

As you can see, I'm finally getting around to blogging and spreading more info. This from neighbor Mike at 6355:

GREETINGS I TALKED WITH KARL AT U.F.. HE GAVE ME LOCATIONS OF TWO TYPES OF TREES SUGGESTED A WHITE OAK LOCATED ACROSS THE STREET FROM BEACH GRADE SCHOOL AT 1710 N. HUMBOLDT IT'S 200 YRS OLD. IT JUST DWARFS THE HOUSE THAT'S UNDER IT...IT'S A REAL PRETTY TREE AND HAS BEEN PHOTOGRAPHED ALOT. THERE IS A BIG LEAF MAPLE ON GREELEY AVE 2 BLKS. SOUTH OF LOMBARD. BOTH TREES ARE HUGE... I'M KIND OF LEANING TOWARD DIFFERENT KINDS OF ELMS, JUST TO KEEP THE BLOCK LOOKING FOR UNIFORM, WITH A SIMILAR SIZE TREE....IT SOUNDS LIKE KARL NEEDS TO KNOW WHAT TO LOCATE BY THE 24TH...

Any thoughts?

Tree Vandals

A few weekends ago some tree vandals went down the parkway and pulled off low-hanging branches off of the Elms. I know that some of the neighbors cleaned up the mess by putting stuff in their garbage.

I asked Autumn Montegna (the elm monitor for the City) about this. She advises us not to clean up elm limbs from the big trees - they are potential dutch elm disease carriers and need to be chipped. We are to call her if branches come down and she will send a City truck out to collect any debris and the City will properly dispose of it. Autumn's phone number at the City is 503-701-7622.

I also pointed out to Autumn that when they pulled out those trees so suddenly, vandalism occurred. This is not random - there are studies showing that places with fewer trees have higher crime rates! I heard this in my tree stewardship class from the Oregon State Forester. Wow, trees are important in lots of different ways.

Trees, Birds, Bees

This Tree Stewardship class that I'm taking is fascinating. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in knowing more about good tree management (at least in the urban environment) and tree biology. I always knew that trees were important to the environment, but I didn't realize *how* important. Our goals to reduce carbon emissions and have clean waters and soils in the future are dependent on maintaining the urban canopy in Portland. Our elms on Omaha Avenue are *key* to a clean future.

Last Saturday our class was held at the Hoyt Arboretum where we had this wonderful tour of some of the hardwoods (birch, maples) by the director of the place. Hoyt has over 8,000 trees representing about 1,000 different species from around the world. We learned a little about tree biology, including the key things about trees: they don't heal from wounds like humans, but instead compartmentalize their owies (CODIT)

We got to hear professional arborists talk about prudent pruning methods and how not to prune trees and more importantly, why trees fail. It was a great way to spend a Saturday - David and I loved it so much that we went back on our own Sunday (with the dog!) and went for another walk through the conifers this time and marveled at the amazing array of species right in Portland. With 12 miles of trails, we will go back many times to see it all.

Airplane, circling

It's 4:30 am. I've been up since 3:00 am because there's a small aircraft circling our neighborhood, relentless, pursuing something. It woke up my dog. Who woke me up.

And at this time of day, there's only one logical conclusion: the Jihad is out there and they're going to get us. I woke up David who said he didn't want to talk about it. Not now, he said. Then I said "yeah, you'll talk about it when the foreigners burst through our front doors demanding our papers!"

He stuck his thumb out from underneath the bedcovers and said "the paper recycling is in the kitchen. They can have all the paper they want."

No one takes me seriously.

Update: there is something going on. See this post from about a week ago in the Sentinel